The Time Magazine Cover That Reduced Reese Witherspoon To Tears

Academy Award-winning Hollywood darling Reese Witherspoon recently opened up about a 2015 Time Magazine cover story that she found so offensive she cried. The “Pretty Little Liars” star is still bothered all these years later by the sexist message she feels it sent to young girls.

Reese Witherspoon Cried Over 2015 Time Magazine Cover

While appearing on the podcast We Are Supported By, Witherspoon recalled how the cover in question featured her alongside other actresses-turned-businesswomen Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba, Lauren Conrad, and Blake Lively.

The women were all photoshopped into designer dresses while doing chores for a 2015 Time piece entitled, “Hollywood’s New Domestic Divas.”

The story behind the cover focused on the lifestyle brands that each of the celebrity women had launched. Disapproval oozed from the piece as the writer contrasted each female celebrity’s Hollywood lifestyle to their “accessible” brand.

The piece calls Witherspoon “universally liked” despite her 2013 “pesky disorderly-conduct arrest”.

The writer’s seemingly overt jabs continued as he opined, “now she wants to sell you an $85 set of linen cocktail napkins embroidered with fanciful, slightly boozy Southernisms.”

Fast forward to 2021 and actress Reese Witherspoon is still not over it. 

“The whole thing was so offensive that I burst into tears,” Witherspoon stated, according to Daily Mail.

Why Reese Witherspoon Found Time Magazine Cover So ‘Offensive’ 

Time Magazine editors reportedly called Witherspoon to apologize directly. Even so, the Sweet Home Alabama actress still feels that the cover highlights how the media undervalues women. 

“I’m not even talking about 10 years ago,” she said. “I’m talking about 2015, when we decided, ‘Okay, we’re going to be entrepreneurial, take a swing, invest our own money, our own time, our own reputation, and try to do something that George Clooney has done, Robert De Niro has done — and getting lampooned for it.’

“That message to little girls is: ‘If you’ve had success in one area, you can’t have success in another,'” Witherspoon added. 

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Reese Witherspoon Launches Media Company For Women

It was this experience that led to Witherspoon launching Hello Sunshine, which is a media company that helps women break into Hollywood and focuses on telling their stories. 

Earlier this month, Witherspoon sold Hello Sunshine to the private equity firm Blackstone Group for $1 billion.

“The thing that made me happy about the [Hello Sunshine] announcement is that the banking world and private equity world value something that is about women and women storytelling in such a huge way,” she explained on the podcast.

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Witherspoon Has Been Out To Help Women For Years

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Witherspoon wanted to help women and make it possible for them to tell their own stories in Hollywood. 

“I really want to be helpful to the next generation of women — to my own generation of women — who haven’t been well served by our business,” she said. 

Back in 2016, Witherspoon lamented to the Wall Street Journal that in Hollywood, women’s stories are often treated as being unimportant.

Despite this, she still felt that there was a market for stories about women told by women. 

“I’m going to double down on that mission to hire more female creators from all walks of life and showcase their experiences,” Witherspoon said at the time. “This is a meaningful move in the world because it really means that women’s stories matter.”

Nobody can deny that Reese Witherspoon is a woman with purpose and drive. She can take solace in the fact she set out to make a difference and she’s doing just that.